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Affordability and planning
Why nothing works if housing doesn’t, and what we can do about it
STRATEGY
Cllr Lorna Fielker
Leader of Southampton City Council and portfolio lead for housing at Key Cities
Cllr Lorna Fielker
Leader of Southampton City Council and portfolio lead for housing at Key Cities
Issue 72 | July 2024
Safe, secure housing is the bedrock of our society. It is the foundation that gives us the ability to access a good education, to find a good job, and to live a healthy life.
Nothing works if housing doesn’t. When it fails, as it currently is for too many people, it puts pressure on everything else.
While none of this is particularly new information at Key Cities - a cross-party network of 27 cities representing around 10% of the country’s population - we felt a compelling need to re-emphasise the central importance of housing in our latest manifesto.
This document sets out in clear terms our asks of Government. It was heartening to see a similarly prominent focus on housing in the Labour manifesto and we look forward to seeing policy emerge to deliver on these promises.
As the portfolio lead for housing at Key Cities, I am currently hearing, through conversations with colleagues at other cities up and down the country, the negative impact the state of housing is having - from finances, to homelessness, to the knock-on impact this has on other crucial services and civil society itself.
Nationwide issue
At the heart of this is the lack of supply of new housing – something I am acutely aware of as Leader of Southampton City Council.
Our problems reflect other parts of the country: there is not just a general lack of supply, but a lack of supply of housing across all tenures. From affordable housing to private rental housing to family homes to retirement living, wherever you are in your journey, there is not enough housing choice for you in your local village, town, or city.
Our most salient request is to reintroduce housing targets on day one. Key Cities is delighted this ask has been met. The re-introduction of housebuilding targets, places local authorities back into the centre of housing delivery, with accountable, deliverable local plans.
As housing is a nationwide problem, everywhere in the country must play its part. Each place must have a proportionate goal for delivering new homes of all tenures. The proposed strategic approach to greenbelt land designation and release, to build more homes in the right places should help, alongside cross-boundary strategic planning.
For many Key Cities, including Southampton, the reintroduction of targets needs to go hand-in-hand with reform of council tax. The ability to raise money locally is unevenly distributed. Here in Southampton, most homes are in Bands A and B. That low council tax base impacts on the money we have to spend on essential services. Pre-election, Labour stated that it will not be looking at council tax banding. Councils will therefore need to make a convincing case for reform to be added to the new government’s policy agenda.
A new commitment
Labour’s commitment to deliver the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation, and prioritising social housing is very welcome. However, in cities like Southampton, where market rates are high compared to the national average, ‘affordable’ (set at 80% of market rate) is still too expensive for some. Our Key Cities manifesto calls for affordable rent calculation to use social rent of a given area as its baseline so that affordable housing does as it says.
With homelessness skyrocketing and the pathways for those to come out of temporary accommodation becoming increasingly blocked, having the public sector building new homes would help alleviate this crisis.
It is worth reflecting that much of what we ask for is not particularly new. It will be incredibly familiar to everyone in local government. Yet the longer we have waited in recent years for action the more difficult the situation has become and the more urgent the call. In many ways we would rather not repeat ourselves and focus instead on more positive and productive measures to help our communities flourish.
Underpinning our asks is a logical reset of the broken relationship between central and local government. Reference to the key role of local leaders is made in every section of the Labour manifesto. Key Cities welcome this recognition which signals a desire to work together to deliver our shared ambitions.
